Preeti Shenoy Interview – Why We Love the Way We Do Book

We are privileged to introduce Preeti Shenoy who is one of the most popular Indian Authors. She is a best selling Author and ranks in top 10 authors of India. Her books have been listed among top best selling Indian fiction list from time to time. She holds various academic degrees with diverse interests and also got recognised from UK university in portraiture. She has written various columns in leading newspapers of India.

What inspired you to start writing?

What draws me to writing? Writing is cathartic for me. It is therapy. It is like the air I breathe. It is life! Without writing my life would be bereft, empty, barren, and meaningless.

What did you like to read when you were a girl?

I was a voracious reader and I read anything I could lay my hands on! My home was filled with books. My father had a transferrable job, and everywhere we went, the books travelled with us. I read the classics as well as the Enid Blytons, Amar chitra kathas, Just William series and many more. I also read I’m Ok, You’re Ok by Thomas Harris, and it remains one of my favourite books.

What is the greatest challenge in writing a book?

For me, it is getting the time to be alone to write!

How much research do you do before writing the book?

What motivated you to write the book “Why We Love the Way We Do”?

I get mails from complete strangers who share with me the most intimate details of their lives and ask me for my advice. Now here is the thing—when I am not directly involved in something, the perspective I have from my vantage point is so different from the one someone badly entangled in the situation has. So whenever I have offered my thoughts, they have always been graciously received. Through the stories that people shared with me, what I discovered was that when it comes to relationships and love, we all are slaves of our heart, whether we are in our forties or our twenties.

These stories that people shared led me to a quest for answers. I researched and read up. And all of what I discovered found its way into my columns in a National daily. Why We Love The Way We Do is a collection of pieces adapted from these columns. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing experience, as the column is on relationships, sex, communication between men and women, finding the perfect partner and anything else that you can think of on those lines. The inspiration for these columns comes from real life stories that many people have shared with me over the years. People seem to consider me a ‘relationship expert’. Surprisingly most people were okay when I ask them if I can write about what they had shared with me. In fact, they urged me to do so as they felt it would help others in a similar situation. So in many places in this book I have shared real stories, but of course I have changed the details and the names to protect identities.

Most of what I have said in the book comes from a combination of many hours of research and many years of experience. While writing the columns, I had to be certain what I was saying was backed by scientific research and studies. So I investigated and read up. I was intrigued by some of the things I discovered. Some of it confirmed what I already knew. Some of it came as a surprise. I also learnt about many things: for example, how the dynamics of a relationship worked, whether there is a pattern, whether we can control things like choosing whom we can fall in love with, what can we do to make the relationship last, how we can tell if it is love or lust and so on. I have shared it all in this book.

Can you tell us more about your latest book “Why We Love the Way We Do”?

Why We Love the Way We Do is a collection of essays on relationships where I discuss some of those issues and questions that people in relationships or those hoping to be in one, face. When it comes to relationships there are so many questions that most of us ponder about. No matter how young or old we are, we all want ways to make our relationships better. The best way to do that is to understand what makes us behave the way we do.

They are based on my hugely popular columns in a national daily, the topics range from those particular to our modern, technology-filled world like how to move from an online relationship to a real-life one, how to find and keep love online, whether casual sex is worth the effort—to those immortal issues such how men and women communicate differently, how to deal with a broken heart and how jealousy ruins a relationship.

I felt happy when my editor said that it was filled with wonderful insights, sharp observations, humour, and real-life examples and was written in my trademark lucid style.

The book is divided into seven sections. Finding the One is largely about finding love and deals with the dating stage; Getting Hitched is about marriage; When Things Go Wrong deals with break-ups and all things associated; On Men and Women focuses on gender differences; Let’s Talk deals with how differently men and women communicate; Three to Tango is about infidelity; and Between the Sheets is about sex. You can read them in any order you like—that is the beauty of a collection like this one.

Who are your favourite authors?

Too many to name—Audrey Niffeneger, Michael Morpurgo, Roald Dahl’s writing for adults, Daniel Glattauer to name a few.